5 Things: The Playoffs

It’s on! Tonight the journey continues. The first long, twisted, sordid chapter has closed. The regular season for the Los Angeles Lakers eclipsed all previous drama, created the new standard for bat-shit-crazy in terms of general Laker wackiness and it showed us that AD and LBJ fit like like matching mittens. As we begin the playoffs it’s important to remember: it’s a new season, none of what we did before matters in terms of what we can do now. For good or ill.

1. We’re back in the flipping playoffs!!!!! After a lengthy drought the playoff rain has come and it is glorious indeed. Nothing can dampen the excitement. Not COVID-19, not the passing of Kobe and Gigi, not nothing, no-how, no-way. So, please, enjoy this one, Lakerholics. Savor it, let it soak into the palette.
2. Story lines and scripts. As we ‘ve all bandied about for months now this Lakers team is loaded with various plots, threads, stories and scripts. As we’ve already seen in the playoffs, it’s easy for those to flip. With no home court advantage to rely on, it might be harder than ever to reverse a bad plot once the script has been flipped. Watching Orlando come out and calmly throttle the Milwaukee Bucks today is one glaring example of how the lack of a home court advantage is going to make these series a lot more even. Same goes for the conditioning of the various teams. It’s very even footing making a lot of the seeding kind of negligible.
3. How far can Davis and James carry this team? Hopefully like the super old skool TECMO Bowl version of Bo Jackson plowing through a defense that just keeps trying to pile on. Regardless, no stats or overly hyperbolic words need be written: as far they take us is as far as we go. Bo knows.

4. They can’t do it alone. LeBron says Kyle Kuzma needs to play like our 3rd best player. Considering the veteran talent assembled on this squad specifically for a post season run that comes off as slightly alarmist but, in my opinion, true. Danny Green will be Danny Green and he’s well-paid in the doing. Rondo will play, eventually. All the guys brought in during the season will have a role of some sort. Caruso lacks the offensive chops to swing a game on both ends (but will be vital to our team defense). KCP is KCP. That leaves Kyle.

5. Frank Vogel, his strategies and rotations and how quickly he can adapt and adjust. The playoffs are about 3, things: adjusting and adapting to what the other team is doing (especially after a loss), talent and the caliber of your superstar, and executing the game plan of the coach around the talent of your best player(s). The coach and his staff are responsible for a lot of those things, both the initial strategy and the subsequent adjustments. I’m not sure Frank has ever coached talent like LeBron and AD, certainly not 2 players of such high caliber and he needs to find the right blend of letting them do their thing, getting the team to buy into the defense and making sure we adapt to keep up with out opponents. Going to be fun to watch.

Go Lakers!